Requiem for gb.tc

I'm a little late to write about this, but it's taken awhile to get my thoughts together. I'm so crazy busy with Staq right now that I'm going to write fast.

Last month we learned that gb.tc, one of my favorite Baltimore institutions, is going "on hiatus".  This news filled-me with sadness and I don't want the event to go by without remarking on it. gb.tc brought a lot of vitality to the city. It felt like a uniquely Baltimore institution, something that other cities would eventually import from us. I can't think of another institution that cares about helping Baltimore develop innovative industries and people. There are plenty of foundations and non-profits around town that could argue with that statement, I suppose, but my answer to all of them would be: "yes, what you're doing is important, but you're only focused on this one small piece of the puzzle", or "you are too slow-moving and focused on top-down solutions to ever make much of an impact". That, to me, was the special competency of the gb.tc - harnessing the grassroots/bottom-up energy of technologists and helping organizing it into a force for good in the city.

The general sense I get from my peers is "the tech community is self-organizing, so we didn't really need what those guys were doing" which I think is flat-out, dead wrong. It's true that Baltimore has many interesting, vibrant events, they're for the most part labors of love done by people who have other priorities besides making the city great, and they depend on the force of personality of a small group of hard-working volunteers. There still ought to be a team of people committed to growing these events and ensuring we don't lose momentum (something I called for back in 2011). For example, I helped run the first (and so far, only) RailsGirls event in Baltimore. I think we need to be doing 2 or 3 of those per year, given how long the waiting list for that event was...I just don't have the bandwidth to do it. Who is going to pick up that mantle? (Fortunately, Girl Develop It has come to Baltimore, but look at all the time that went by between RailsGirls and Girl Develop It).

gb.tc also developed deep relationships with different parts of the city - no one else was trying to connect the more entrepreneurial part of the tech community with the public sector, as exemplified by "Hack for Change Baltimore" which had strong city support. The city would not be trying to support more hackathons this year if not for gb.tc's efforts. They've also provided free startup mentoring,  the "Baltimore Weekly" podcast, amazing "Tech Crawls", and many other valuable services.

I'm not sure if I'm making sense here. Maybe go read that Innovation Community Manager post I wrote in 2011 to get a sense of what we've lost.

It sounds like Betamore is going to try to provide a soft-landing for gb.tc. I feel skeptical of the idea but I really want it to succeed - I just think there's an inevitable mismatch between the mission of a for-profit company (even a mission-driven company like Betamore) and the social-good mission of the gb.tc.

Thank you to Jason Hardebeck, Andrew Hazlett, and Sharon Paley for all of their hard work over the past few years (along with all of the other people who built gb.tc into what it was before their tenure). Your efforts made Baltimore a better place to do creative things, and we're poorer without you.

What is the tech community and who belongs to it?

We had some breaking news in Baltimore's tech scene last week: Sharon Webb was replaced as the head of the Greater Baltimore Technology Council (GBTC) by Jason Hardebeck. Sharon was a friend of mine, and I really bought into her plan to reinvigorate the council and make it more relevant to tech companies. As part of that effort she and GBTC board president Jason Pappas recruited me to be the Entrepreneur-in-Residence. To be clear, I'm not speaking for the GBTC in this post.

The news brought out an extraordinary amount of confusion, hurt feelings, and acrimony, expressed in social media channels. Neal Shaffer nailed it when he tweeted: "It occurs to me that the GBTC convo isn't really about GBTC at all. It's about a community with momentum coming to a crossroads."

That crossroads involves a few questions I hope to address here:

1. What is the Baltimore tech community and who is part of it?
2. Do we need to a group like the GBTC to further develop the tech sector in Baltimore?
3. Are Baltimore tech events infected with an unseemly degree of enthusiasm for startups at the expense of other kinds of companies?

WHAT IS THE BALTIMORE TECH COMMUNITY AND WHO IS PART OF IT?

I want apologize to Elizabeth Eadie and everyone else I offended with a comment I made in the heat of the moment during an online chat (you can read about it here) in which I implied that service businesses are not as valuable to the economy as other kinds of businesses. That was a dumb thing to say. When this chat was taking place we were under the misapprehension that the new GBTC leadership was steering away from supporting entrepreneurs and startups in favor of more established, dues-paying large companies, which fortunately turned out to be completely untrue. I was venting my frustration that the startup sector, which I think is very undeveloped, seemed to be getting short shrift. I was actually responding to the disdain for startups I perceived in Elizabeth's earlier post on this subject, a disdain I often hear from independent technologists around Baltimore. 

Now that I've had a few days to cool down, here's how I really feel: everyone who makes technology of any kind in Baltimore is a member of the tech community. Too often we unconsciously emphasize "software companies" or "startup companies" when speaking of the "tech community", but that might be because software people and startup people are  better organized or more vocal than other technologists around town; I'm really not sure who our counterparts in the biotech world are, for example, not because they aren't valued members of the local technology scene but simply because (as far as I know) there's no one blogging about Baltimore biotech, and there aren't that many public biotech booster events.

I also think that the tech community includes companies that make heavy use of technology. Sharon Webb introduced me to a great example of this kind of company on the cutting edge of maritime logistics technology: Vane Brothers. I'd love to go to a meetup where they show off the cool stuff they are doing to disrupt the shipping industry!

DO WE NEED A GROUP LIKE THE GBTC TO DEVELOP THE TECH SECTOR?

The GBTC lost a lot of relevance in the past few years, and their board members know it. Some in the Baltimore Tech Facebook group and in other forums question the very existence of the GBTC, and they are right to do so: the GBTC has some impressive resources including a budget; a small full-time staff; and a large and well-connected board of directors. Have we as a society made a good investment of that social and financial capital?

I think Tom Loveland explained it best on Facebook:

"...sometimes you need an association. Like to fight a tech tax. Or to make sure DBED supports IT and startups instead of just bio and big business. (All that invisible stuff you never see.) And that City Hall remembers us, too. (In her State of the City address last year our Mayor announced I think only one bit of new spending, and it went to the ETC.) And though dozens of smaller events and get-togethers, ad hoc to organized, are fantastic, occasionally it's a very good thing to hold a giant celebration of our community. And to be all it can, a community needs to leverage its old farts and winners, those with wisdom and/or connections, who can assist the next generation. Often it's the association staff who sees a need and knows who can help and can make the connection. The up-and-comers in the throes probably don't know who to ask, and often don't even know to ask, or that awesome help is available."

So, just because GBTC has lost its edge doesn't mean that we should get rid of trade associations altogether. I have personally benefitted from GBTC as a connecting, community-building organization the whole time I've lived here: GBTC was the first sponsor of my first tech event in Baltimore and also played an instrumental role in making the first Baltimore Hackathon so successful. I met a key mentor at a GBTC Face2Face dinner, and I always make many new connections at TechNite events.

ARE BALTIMORE TECH EVENTS INFECTED WITH AN UNSEEMLY DEGREE OF ENTHUSIASM FOR STARTUPS AT THE EXPENSE OF OTHER KINDS OF COMPANIES?

Elizabeth wrote "...I find the tech-start-up-entrepreneur-scene to be toxic and exhausting." She feels put off by the fact that "Too many people in the tech scene are trying to make a bazillion dollars overnight." Elsewhere on Elizabeth's blog Jason Rhodes echoes the sentiment when he says he "...never felt quite at home in the start-up focused Bmore tech scene. Like a lot of the people, but it seems to be focused heavily on things I’m less interested in as far as starting my own company, etc."

I have a mixed reaction to this. First of all, I now have two small kids and so I don't go to many tech events any more. Enough comments like these appeared enough on Twitter and Facebook to make me believe it must have become a common experience, which sucks.

Yet in my opinion, the primary and perhaps the only problem that our tech community suffers is a shortage of startups! Who are all of these "start-up focused" people trying to make "a bazillion dollars"? What companies have they started? There's a pretty small handful of startup companies around here, and all of the entrepreneurs I know trying to get a startup going are not the sort of craven, venal people that Elizabeth and her colleagues hold in contempt. In fact they are some of the most generous, open-minded people around, and they are motivated by a desire to change the world and make something really cool, while incidentally making money. Purely greedy assholes don't really want to live in Baltimore and we're better off for it!

Maybe it has to do with differing ideas of what a startup is. Startups are considered to be glamorous, shiny things in tech culture, and people who aren't doing them might feel jealous of the attention that startups get - especially when you read about a startup company raising tons of money or press coverage on the basis of zero revenue. If I was the owner of a small, profitable tech company in Baltimore, I'm sure I'd feel the same way! Instead of using superficialities to define what a startup is, I propose we stick to Eric Ries' excellent definition: "A startup is a human institution designed to deliver a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty."

So if you're in a company and experiencing extreme uncertainty (not knowing who your customers are, exactly what problems you're going to solve, and whether you can make money solving them), congratulations, you're in a startup. It would be very wrong to say you're somehow better as a person or that your pursuit is more noble than someone else who is not experiencing that uncertainty, but it's also very wrong to dismiss such companies the way some people in the Baltimore tech scene have been doing. It's wrong to say we shouldn't be bending over backwards to help people who are considering making the leap of faith required to do a startup.

Why is it wrong? Because with this risk comes the potential for great reward, both for the entrepreneur and for the entire city. Startups can become large, wealth-creating entities in a way that few other kinds of businesses can. Startups make their founders and early employees rich, and those people can then turn around and reinvest in the city as philanthropists, entrepreneurs, or angel investors. We are missing this "virtuous cycle" in Baltimore (but keep your eye on Greg Cangialosi who is starting a new revolution of the cycle). The only way to get it moving is to get more people doing startups. I don't apologize for encouraging people to consider startups because I find it a rewarding lifestyle, quite apart from the potential to make lots of money (which is nice also!), and because a crop of awesome startups would become a rising tide lifting all of our boats. I want small web businesses in Baltimore to have more local clients with deep pockets! Baltimore with a few more companies like LivingSocial or Zappos or Millenial Media or Advertising.com or BillMeLater would be an incredible place to live no matter what your occupation!

I take this charge fairly personally since I don't think anyone is waving the flag for startups in Baltimore harder than I am. If I'm doing something that makes you feel excluded or unwanted please let me know and I will fix it. I'm wondering if there's maybe a small crop of "wantrepreneurs" who make a lot of noise about startups but who aren't "for real"; please don't count them as emblematic of startup life in Baltimore or emblematic for how I feel.

IN CONCLUSION

I've written a lot about Baltimore's potential to become more of a prominent technology hub than it already is. It would be crazy to diminish any part of it; we need everyone here being productive doing what they love and not wasting time squabbling like we've been doing. Like Tom Loveland, I see an important role for a trade group like the GBTC, and that's why I volunteer there. I liked Sharon Webb and was sad to see her go but I'm willing to give Jason Hardebeck the benefit of the doubt. Ever forward!

My New Gig at the Greater Baltimore Technology Council

The Greater Baltimore Technology Council (GBTC) recently announced that I've started working with them as a volunteer "Entrepreneur-in-Residence". I've been good-naturedly teased about it a bit and had a few people ask me, "so what does that mean"? Many of my friends don't know what the GBTC is or why it's here. Here's my quick explanation.

The GBTC is a nonprofit with a mission to help grow the technology sector here in Maryland. If you've been reading my blog for a while you know what a big deal that is to me. I love living here and I love building software, so anything that helps grow the tech sector is near and dear to my heart. The GBTC was the first organization to sponsor Ignite Baltimore, helping to get the word out for that first event, and they have been a sponsor ever since.

Since the group was founded in the late 90's the tech sector has changed. Today almost every company is a tech company, and many technology practitioners no longer work for companies at all. More people are in business for themselves. More projects get accomplished via the "Hollywood model" of federated teams of independent contractors coming together for a fixed amount of time. Infrastructure costs have dropped rapidly, making information technology in particular far more affordable - practically free in some cases.

The GBTC leadership is making bold plans to modernize the organization to keep pace with these changes; in fact they are poised to put the GBTC on the cutting edge of these changes, making it a dynamic organization relevant to everyone in the tech game: freelancers, entrepreneurs, small companies, big companies, local governments, education institutions, even other nonprofits.

It's early days for this transformation, but they've already taken a very bold step: they are hiring an Innovation Community Manager, an idea I've been advocating for awhile. That person's main job will be to support the grass-roots tech organization efforts that many of us have been pursuing for years. I can't think of a more effective way for the GBTC to advance its mission.

My job as EIR at GBTC is to help craft this transformation plan in a way that helps my fellow-entrepreneurs. My fellows include many more constituencies than simply other Internet startup people: we want the new GBTC to help everyone in the area who's trying to start something innovative. You might be working in a big company or at a struggling nonprofit, or in an established small business and looking to grow. Whatever the key ingredients for your continued success are, we want to help provide them. My role to that end will include advocacy and writing (like this blog post), attending staff meetings, giving feedback to different ideas, and generally just lending a hand to all of the GBTC's activities.

I don't want to steal any more thunder from the cool stuff they're working on, but I do want to say as an entrepreneur it's a great learning experience for me as I watch the GBTC board and CEO Sharon Webb make a big transformation in an institution like this. It's like they are founding the group all over again while it's still operating. There are lots of stakeholders, a heritage to preserve, and uncertainty about which choices to make to ensure future success. Very similar to the sort of environment I'm in with my own venture!